Elite Dangerous Will Come To PS4 Eventually

Frontier Developments recently announced that Elite: Dangerous would be arriving on the Xbox One this summer. The announcement was met with a lot of confusion and frustration by PlayStation 4 owners. Founder of Frontier Developments David Braben took to Twitter to explain that the game is coming to the PS4.

In a very simple tweet, contained within the limits of only 140 characters, Braben explained that the PS4 version of Elite: Dangerous would eventually arrive.

@smallfaraway_ Sure. Mac of course, then down the line we will support more, including PS4. The XB1 is a timed exclusive.

That response didn't bring out the best in the community's comments. A lot of people instantly became more frustrated that the game is a timed exclusive for the Xbox One.

The thing is, timed exclusives usually mean that the platform holder paid for a certain amount of time to have the game on that platform exclusively. The only other time a game is a “timed exclusive” is if the developer lacks the resources to port to other consoles and uses the launch on one platform to gain enough sales returns to use that money as an in vestment into development for other platform ports.

For a lot of indies, they'll only launch on one other platform outside of PC until they're financially comfortable enough to launch on other platforms. We've seen some developers skip on the Xbox One before due to the parity clause because they stated that they didn't have the resources to do a simultaneous multi-platform launch, thus they stuck with scattered releases across PC, PS4 and the Wii U (with some releasing on handhelds and portable devices as well). This is what happened with games like Without Memory, Vlambeer's Wasteland Kings, The Swapper and BroForce, among others.

Microsoft decided to turn things around recently by securing some games as timed exclusives. One of the games that had a lot of people talking about the move is Crystal Dynamics' Rise of the Tomb Raider, which will be a timed exclusive on the Xbox One.

David Braben stating that Elite: Dangerous is a timed exclusive for the Xbox One sort of gives gamers the impression that Microsoft acquired the game as a console exclusive for a limited time. However, Braben doesn't go any further with his tweets and leaves gamers to fuss over the decision amongst themselves.

It's safe to say at least that Elite: Dangerous will make its way to the PS4 and Mac. The only thing is that said gamers will have to wait a while for that to happen. The real question becomes: how long?

Most timed exclusive deals range between six months to a year. Will space-sim fans stuck with just a PS4 still be interested? Time will tell.

For now, Xbox One owners can look forward to Elite: Dangerous to launch this year with all of the PC version's updates, including the latest free update for March.